We’ve all been taught that meditation is good for us and mindfulness practices should be done daily. Thurman challenges us when he suggests that meditation should not take us out of the world of suffering. He’s learned this from his decades studying Tibetan Buddhism and has gained an understanding that the real challenge of the quest for wisdom and natural bliss is to remain infinitely interconnected with everything without attachment or aversion. Through his decades long relationship with Buddhism and his friendship with the Dalai Lama he’s come to realize that Buddhism is not a religion but is an engagement with “real” reality. The entire Buddhist tradition is built on a philosophical scientific foundation. The Buddha was more a scientist than a religious teacher. Here we explore how we can tap into “real” reality by removing the veils of ignorance and make our life count with evolutionary skill. His instruction on meditation is, “The most powerful and important meditation is seeing through the illusion of [you] being more real than the other things in the world. Then you will begin to feel the reality of the other things, the way you feel the reality of yourself. You equalize yourself with others. When you meditate try to hold that and constantly correct [that] habitual misperception…Then you really will, at some point, become enlightened. And you’ll cheer up because you’ll take yourself less seriously even while you’re just working on it. That’s already a big benefit.”
